well, that wasn't so bad

the spaceneedl winter vacation is over.

in its place is a passel of memories that can only be characterized as memorable.

let's start with the weather. it was warm. very warm. and sunny. the only way rain was falling from that sky was if somebody turned on the fire hoses.

which, apparently someone did.

a couple weeks before our visit, there was a fire in the condo building where we were staying. it didn't seem to amount to much, from what we could see, except that all the amenities were closed. the pool. the hot tub. the game room. you know, the places to send the children so we could drink in peace.

all shut down.

backtrack.

prior to the trip, our large transport vehicle went out of commission. the alternate little car, while a very comfortable ride, is little. it hauls very little gear. so we were obliged to rent an expensive car-top carrier for all our stuff.

insult to injury update: it took 4 hours to get the rack installed.

the drive up to canada was long, made longer still by the backup at the border. the new gps device gave us bad advice, so instead of taking the truck crossing, we queued up with the rest of the sheep at the peace arch crossing. mrs. spaceneedl expressed her dissatisfaction with gps technology several times.

finally...finally, we rolled into whistler village, picked up our keys to the condo, and, bleary-eyed, read the "sorry for the inconvenience" sign posted in the elevator.

we spent the rest of our first night on the phone, insisting on new accommodations.

the next day mrs. spaceneedl and i snowboarded while the children skied circles around us. in truth, we approximated some snowboard-like motions, punctuated by intense, painful falling-like motions. the children simply left us behind for the entire day. occasionally they would wave and laugh at us from the chairlift.

afterward, we looked forward to an idyllic evening of a horse-drawn sleigh ride over the snow-covered hills of the chateau whistler golf course, followed by a fun and tasty fondue dinner.

halfway into the ride, mrs. spaceneedl suffered an asthma attack.

once a bona fide horse person, she now is at risk of a pulmonary event if she even thinks about horses. okay, that may be a slight exaggeration. still, on this night, the proximity to a team of beautiful draught horses, combined with the cold air, put the missus into an asthmatic fit.

and her inhaler, which she should never be without if she's even thinking about visualizing the word "horse"? back at the condo.

which, thankfully, was only a half-mile run away.

by the time i got back, she looked as if she had been visited by the angel of death herself. she was surrounded by restaurant staff, all yammering on about their experiences with asthma and their sure-fire cures.

after due consideration, we decided to go with the inhaler. eventually it did its job, and eventually we enjoyed a caloriffic meal. with alcohol.

we returned to the condo and retrieved a message that our plea for new quarters had been granted. we were physically and emotionally exhausted, but figured we had raised too much of a fuss not to move to the new place. which turned out to be a big upgrade. a huge hot tub, a heated pool, a game room with a big-screen tv.

the rooms, where we collapsed, were nice, too.

the next day we got up and did it all over again. the kids laughed and waved. mrs. spaceneedl, tired of being mocked, ditched the snowboard in favor of skis. apres-ski, there was an off-course injury incident at the tube park, but by blind luck, it didn't involve either of the little needls.

later, we ate. later still, we slept. the next day, the sun shone again.

on the way home, we ignored the advice from the gps, and took the truck crossing route. the device seemed genuinely disappointed each time we bypassed a recommended turn. "recalculating," she said, inconsolably. we shaved a good hour off our trip.

in the end, no one got hurt, some fun was had, and i progressed significantly, snowboarding-wise. despite numerous falls (which were painful way out of proportion to speed and slope), i'm ready to go back and try again.

next year. maybe.